What Google Ads actually does for a trade business
Google Ads for tradies puts your business at the top of Google the moment someone searches for your trade in your suburb. You only pay when someone clicks, and with call tracking in place you can see exactly what each booked job cost you. For most trades it is the fastest way there is to fill a schedule.
Trade searches are not like other searches
Someone typing “emergency electrician near me” at nine at night is not browsing, they are picking. They call one of the first names they see and the rest of the page never gets read. That urgency is why paid search beats almost every other channel for trades, and why a sloppy campaign burns money faster here than anywhere else.
Where most trade campaigns leak money
Loose keyword matching pulls in job seekers, DIYers and suburbs you would never drive to. The clicks that do land arrive on a homepage that was never built to take a booking. And with no call tracking in place, nobody can tell which half of the budget actually worked.
What I do differently
Every campaign is built around the jobs you want, in the postcodes you actually service, landing on a page with one job to do. Calls and form fills are tracked end to end, so cost per lead is a real number we both look at each week. Your account, your data and your landing pages stay yours.
Want to know what this would cost in your suburb?
Give me your trade and your service area and I will come back with real search volumes and a realistic monthly spend. No obligation either way.
Everything that turns a search into a booked job
Five moving parts. Miss one and the other four end up carrying a campaign that leaks. Pick any of them to see exactly what I do.
Google Search Ads built around trade jobs
The core of every account. Your ad sits above the organic results the moment someone searches for your trade in your service area, so you are the first option rather than the fifth.
- Keyword sets built job by job, not scraped from a template
- Exact and phrase match discipline so DIYers and job seekers are filtered out
- Negative keyword lists that grow every week the account runs
- Ad copy written for the job, with call extensions and location extensions live
- Bidding tuned to the hours your phone actually gets answered
- Postcode-level targeting so you never pay for a suburb you will not drive to
Search is where the intent is. If your budget only stretches to one campaign type, it starts here.
Local Services Ads and the Google Guaranteed badge
Local Services Ads sit above everything else on the page, including search ads, and you pay per lead instead of per click. They suit trades where the customer wants a licensed, insured, verified name.
- Full application, licence and insurance verification handled for you
- Google Guaranteed badge set up where your trade qualifies
- Job types and service areas configured so you only get calls you want
- Weekly review of disputed leads, so you are not paying for wrong numbers
- Review generation prompts, because ranking here is review-weighted
- Run alongside search ads, with budget split by what each is returning
Not every trade is eligible in every area. I will check your category before you spend a cent.
Landing pages with exactly one job
A click is only worth what the page does with it. Sending paid traffic to a general homepage is the single most common reason a tradie campaign underperforms.
- One page per campaign, matched to the search that brought them there
- Phone number and quote form above the fold on mobile first
- Trust stack up front: licences, insurance, service area, real reviews
- Written for someone standing in a flooded laundry, not for a brochure
- Loads fast on 4G, because paid traffic is overwhelmingly mobile
- Built on your domain and handed over to you, not rented back
Across the published campaigns on this site, on-page conversion rates run between roughly 9% and 30%.
Tracking that tells you what a booked job cost
Without proper tracking, cost per lead is guesswork and every optimisation is a coin flip. This is the part most agencies skip and most tradies never get shown.
- Call tracking on every ad, so phone leads are counted, not estimated
- Form submissions and click-to-call events tracked separately
- Conversion data fed back into Google so the bidding learns from real leads
- Lead source visible per campaign, per keyword and per suburb
- Spam and wrong-number calls filtered out of the numbers
- Everything lives in your account, so it survives if we ever part ways
Weekly optimisation and plain-English reporting
An account left alone drifts. Search terms change, competitors move, seasons turn. The work is in the weekly grind, not the initial build.
- Search term review every week, with new negatives added
- Budget shifted toward the campaigns and suburbs that are converting
- Ad copy and landing page tests run one variable at a time
- Seasonal shifts planned for, from summer air conditioning to winter hot water
- Reporting in plain English: leads, cost per lead, what changed and why
- A person who answers the phone, not a ticket queue
No retainer that keeps billing whether the leads arrive or not. If it stops working, you can walk.
Not sure whether Google Ads is right for your trade?
Tell me your trade and your service area and I will tell you straight whether it is the right move, before you spend a dollar.
Why choose Tradie Ads Expert for Google Ads
There is no shortage of agencies that will happily take a trade business on. The difference is what happens after the invoice clears.
Who runs your account
Most agenciesA junior account manager, often across a dozen unrelated industries at once.
Tradie Ads ExpertI build it and I run it. One person, trade businesses only.
What they know about your trade
Most agenciesLearns your trade on your budget, using a keyword template built for someone else.
Tradie Ads Expert150+ trade businesses run, so the jobs, the seasons and the search terms are already known.
The numbers you get shown
Most agenciesImpressions, clicks and a click-through rate. Rarely a cost per booked job.
Tradie Ads ExpertCost per lead per campaign, published openly — the real spread runs $17.96 to $93.63.
The contract
Most agenciesTwelve month lock-in with a retainer that bills whether the leads arrive or not.
Tradie Ads ExpertNo lock-in and no retainer. The work has to keep earning its place every month.
Who owns the account
Most agenciesThe agency's account, the agency's tracking, the agency's landing pages.
Tradie Ads ExpertYour ad account, your conversion data, your landing pages. You keep all of it.
How you reach the person running it
Most agenciesA ticket queue, and a new account manager every time someone moves on.
Tradie Ads ExpertOne number, one person, and the same person on the account next month.
Your trade, and how its customers actually search
Every trade buys leads differently. Pick yours to see the searches I bid on and what the campaigns have returned.